Wasn't the new, improved Obama making noises about siccing the FCC on states that outlaw municipal broadband? Or was that my imagination?
2: It wasn't your imagination. Wheeler has said that it's on the FCC's agenda, and there are a couple preemption petitions currently pending.
I think that there is a valuable alliance to be had, between municipalities and federal government, against the states.
Reedsburg, WI has municipal broadband, snuck in before ALEC got the state legislature to ban it. I'm sending this message from it right now, working great. We used it to attract Land's End because they needed good internet ordering capacity or something.
Reedsburg, WI has municipal broadband, snuck in before ALEC got the state legislature to ban it. I'm sending this message from it right now, working great. We used it to attract Land's End because they needed good internet ordering capacity or something.
Am I banned? Can't post this.
Reedsburg, WI has municipal broadband, snuck in before ALEC got the state legislature to ban it. I'm sending this message from it right now, working great. We used it to attract Land's End because they needed good internet ordering capacity or something.
Maybe its that socialist municipal broadband, taking its time to send all your bits. Not like that hard-working commercial broadband from Verizon or Time Warner.
Seriously, if a new wave of fast, municipal broadband is unleashed, I'm guessing the Verizons of the world will do all they can to make sure it is slow and unreliable, by refusing peering, or connecting with janky hardware, just like they did to get Netfilx to pay up
If you send a message three times, Lands End comes.
Do you want the government to spy on you directly through their own network or do you want them to collude with private businesses? Real Americans prefer the collusion.
Basically you have a choice between two rival alliances, neither of which has your best interests at heart: telecom corporations in league with state governments on the one hand, and the federal government in league with municipalities on the other. They sometimes ally with each other on other issues, too, so really you're just screwed no matter what.
I'll take the federal-municipal alliance over state-telco any day of the week. Both municipal governments and the federal government have some purpose, whereas state governments are just kind of a pointless layer of middle-management, over-empowerd for legacy reasons.
And telcos are just evil, everywhere you go. Right now, the ones in this region are trying to block Voice Over IP applications, like Skype, and other "Over The Top" applications, on the grounds that it cuts into their revenue they just want to make sure that governments are able to effectively collect telecommunications taxes. This is what happens without Net Neutrality.
4. Some municipalities ban new broadband competition, too. Equal-opportunity bribery.